For more than an era, <br />my Country relished the pains I suffer, <br />watching my banishment in alien lands. <br />When the vision is blurred by distance, <br />they spy me through the hole of a binocular, <br />and roar in peels of laughter; <br />one forty million of them relish my own holocaust. <br /> <br />Never had my country been like this before, <br />She had something called Heart, <br />teeming with humanity. <br />Now she ceases to be the country I knew. <br />Now she is all some decrepit rivers only, <br />some hamlets and towns, <br />here and there some vegetations; <br />Some houses, markets and on the grey meadows, <br />some people who just resemble humans. <br /> <br />Once my country throbbed with life, <br />My countrymen recited poems. <br />Now none thinks twice before banishing a poet, <br />Now at dead of night, the whole country feel free to send a poet to the gallows; <br />one hundred and fifty million of them, <br />derive a lucretian pleasure <br />out of a poet's execution. <br />Once the country knew how to love. <br />Now She has learnt violence and frowning. <br />Sharp swords at her disposal,deadly weapons <br />tucked into her waist, fatal explosives in hand, <br />no longer can She sing a song. <br />Over an age, in search of a country, <br />I've been ransacking the globe; <br />Without a wink of sleep, decade after decade, <br />In my maddening pursuit of a country. <br /> <br />Reaching on the edge of my own country, <br />I wait with arms outstretched for her. <br />Alack! I've heard them say: <br />If my country ever gets me in her grip, <br />She'll build my sepulchre there. <br /> <br />[Translated by Sujal Bhattacharya]<br /><br />Taslima Nasrin<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/what-a-country/
